WEEKES, HENRY (1807–1877), sculptor, was born at Canterbury in 1807. After serving an apprenticeship of five years with William Behnes [q. v.] and studying in the schools of the Royal Academy, he became an assistant to Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey [q. v.] On the death of the latter in 1842 Weekes carried out many of his commissions, and took over his studio in Buckingham Palace Road, which he occupied throughout his life. He exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1828, and in 1838 modelled the first bust of the queen done after her accession to the throne. He took a high position as a portrait-sculptor, and his works of this class have great merit. He executed the statues of Sir Francis Bacon, for Trinity College, Cambridge; Lord Auckland, for Calcutta; Dr. Goodall, for Eton; John Hunter, for the Royal College of Surgeons; William Harvey, for the new museum at Oxford; Archbishop Sumner, for Canterbury Cathedral; Charles II, for the House of Lords; the figures of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley in the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford; and a very large number of busts of eminent persons. Of his fancy figures and groups the most important are the Shelley memorial in Christchurch Abbey, Hampshire, and the group of ‘Manufactures’ in the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park. Engravings of his figure of a ‘Suppliant’ and Shelley monument were published in the ‘Art Journal’ in 1853 and 1863. Weekes was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1850, a full member in 1863, and professor of sculpture in 1873. In 1852 he was awarded a gold medal by the Society of Arts for his treatise on the fine arts section of the International Exhibition of 1851. He died, after much suffering, at his house in Pimlico on 28 May 1877. His bust of Dean Buckland is now in the National Portrait Gallery. A marble bust of Weekes was lent by J. Ernest Weekes to the Victorian Exhibition in 1887.
[Men of the Time, 1875; Art Journal, 1877; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists.]
WEELKES, THOMAS (fl. 1600), musician, was probably born between 1570 and 1580, as in 1597 he published a set of madrigals, which he calls in the dedication ‘the first-fruicts of my barren ground.’ He also alluded to his ‘unripened years’ in the dedication of his second publication in 1598. Soon afterwards he became organist of Winchester College, as appears from his publications in 1600. He then proceeded to New College, Oxford, but was not on the foundation (Reg. Univ. Oxon. ii. i. 31, 147). He supplicated for the degree of Mus. Bac. on 12 Feb. 1601–2, and was admitted on 13 July following. Wood (Fasti) erroneously calls him William Weelks. In the works published in 1608 he describes himself as organist of Chichester Cathedral and gentleman of the Chapel Royal; but his name does not occur in the ‘Cheque-book.’ He died before 1641, as an anthem of his was included in Barnard's ‘First Book of Selected Church Musick,’ from which composers then living were excluded. Another anthem in Barnard's manuscript collections at the Royal College of Music is dated 9 March 1617.
Weelkes's publications were:
- ‘Madrigals to 3, 4, 5, and 6 Voyces,’ 1597; this collection was edited in score by E. J. Hopkins for the Musical Antiquarian Society, 1845; Nos. 2–4 are set to the words ‘My flocks feed not,’ an incorrect version of which subsequently appeared in the ‘Passionate Pilgrim.’
- ‘Ballets and Madrigals to five voyces, with one to 6 voyces,’ 1598; reprinted in 1608.
- ‘Madrigals of 5 and 6 parts apt for the Viols and Voyces,’ 1600.
- ‘Madrigals of 6 parts, apt for the Viols and Voices,’ 1600.
- ‘Ayers or Phantasticke Spirites for three Voices,’ 1608.
Weelkes also contributed a madrigal to Morley's ‘Triumphs of Oriana,’ 1601; and two pieces to Leighton's ‘Teares or Lamentacions of a sorrowful Soule,’ 1614. Besides the anthem printed by Barnard in 1641, two others were published in the Musical Antiquarian Society's ‘Anthems by Composers of the Madrigalian Period’ and ‘Responses to the Commandments’ in ‘The Choir and Musical Record,’ July 1864. In the manuscript collections now at the Royal College of Music, whence Barnard selected his publications, there are eleven other anthems; and vocal and instrumental pieces are preserved in Cosyn's ‘Virginal Book’ at Buckingham Palace, in Additional MSS. 29289, 29366–8, 29372–7, and 29427 at the British Museum, and in MS. 1882 at the Royal College. A madrigal was published by Stanley Lucas from Additional MSS. 17786–91; and there are pavans for viols in Additional MSS. 17792–6.
Some of Weelkes's madrigals have been reprinted in popular collections during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among his best works are: ‘As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending’ (his contribution to the ‘Triumphs of Oriana’); ‘Lo country sports,’ 1597; ‘To shorten winter's sadness,’ ‘In pride of May,’ ‘Welcome, sweet pleasure,’
